TurboSnail

But the photo I copied was black and white! The livery I copied was actually an NCB one, but I've no idea what the colour was - the chassis I had was black, so that made the choice for me!

I'm not doing very well on the 'get projects finished' front - here's another one that might be delayed for a while. A Peckett X Class - waiting for me work out how to scratch build a backhead, then fit buffers, hooks, pipework and other assorted details.

And now for something a wee bit different... Back to industrial, and I have a bit of a thing for Fireless locos, so here's another one. This time based on a 2ft gauge prototype, of which four were supplied to Gretna Munitions factory, by Barclay in 1917. My version is necessarily a bit different, due to the chassis I had available, so it's an 0-4-0 instead of an 0-2-2, rides a little bit higher, and is effectively "half-gauge" (or 2ft 4in to scale). Designed to be ultra-lightweight, with features like the wooden cab, and as the source material says "only weighed 3 ton 17 cwt... (complete with lady driver)"!

Happy new year everyone! Hope it's all a bit more fun than the doom-mongering of recent times! Sticking strictly to modelling, my hope is that I'll get better at finishing projects, instead of starting them then leaving them on the sidelines for years at a time. We shall see how that turns out!

These brakes are from the 1879/80 set, and should really be close-coupled. I'm not sure whether I'll model them as such as I have nowhere to run a proper rake at the moment so they may stay as single coaches for now. The limited info I have seems to imply that there weren't composites - a typical train being three firsts, four seconds (including a brake) and four thirds (including a brake). I would guess the firsts would be 4-comp and the rest 5-comp (excepting the brakes at 3-comp) which makes: 12 1st Class compartments, 18 2nds and 18 3rds, or 2:3:3 by ratio. I've invented the composite in my rake to try and keep a distribution of 1st, 2nd and 3rd within a much shorter train. I don't know if it'll work, but we'll see!

A bit more on that finish, as it may be useful to you - main body colour is RAL3007 (at least according to the spray can) which may or may not be right. The transfers are from Fox, yellow 0.35mm lining plus the SECR coach pack. It didn't take a whole lot of skill to do, just plenty of patience cutting lining sections... To try and make everything line up on the sides, long strips were laid all the way along, left to dry, I then trimmed out the bits between the panelling. The roof was a pale grey, supposed to be weathered white, but that didn't really work. I'm stuck with it now though!

Time for something proper and pre-grouping... ex-LCDR coaching stock! I'm hoping this is good enough for the livery, it may have to be as adding the window lining would be another 88 separately applied lines per coach, and I'm not sure I have the patience for that... The rest of the train may one day look a bit like this! From left to right: - 3-comp brake third (the one I've liveried half of above) - modelled accurately to a drawing - 5-comp composite (2-1-1-1-2) - fictional, but with the same panelling and features as the others. If I can work up the motivation to do a lot more CAD, I may swap this for a 4-comp 2-1-1-2 as I guess that would be more prototypical? This one has to make up the proportion of firsts and seconds in the train. - 5-comp third (existed, but don't have drawings). Same style as the others - 3-comp brake second - accurate to a drawing, most downgraded to thirds by my era, but two were still seconds so can just about justify it! A prototypical rake would be up to 11 coaches as far as I can tell, but I'm not sure I'd live long enough to complete that at the rate I'm going! One thing I'm looking for - does anyone know what a set number might be for this sort of train? The one that goes on the ends of the brake carriages - I've got the large yellow numerals transfers, but no idea what set no. to give it.

Wait for the influx of ex-Christmas set ones in the new year!

Lots of small mods on this one, started life in BR 'Sunshine' Black, and I think might technically be the most modern-era stock I own! (also, no 3D printing in sight! I'm ok, I promise...)

Modelling motivation has been a bit low recently, but the arrival of some name/number/works plates gave me a small simple job to get on with.

Thanks! It is the Hardy's kit, but a pre-production test I did, so it has a slightly different mix of footplate and body parts to the kits on sale - a little late finishing it, but I got there in the end! The C is on the back burner for a while, until I decide what to do with the chassis. It works in theory, but isn't the smoothest with the two axle drive, and doesn't have compensation so might struggle for pickup over the three-way points on my layout. But if I swap to conventional one-axle drive, then I have to figure out how to make tiny but functional conrods... I think I might re-jig the Class F first, and see how that turns out - getting progressively smaller!

I have had a go at 3D printing gears and gearboxes before, but I tend to stick with HL or other ones these days, the issues I had were mainly around printing tolerances and warp. Firstly, the printed parts can drift/warp a little bit, fine for bodywork but even 0.1mm of movement can badly affect a gear mesh. Also, the gears themselves have to be fairly coarse (mod 0.5 or higher) to deal with over/under size printing, which means you don't get a great mesh and the noise and wear aren't great either - and of course you're more limited on the gear ratios you can achieve. It can be made to work, I'm sure, metal gears certainly might help, but needs plenty of experimentation and fettling to run nicely.

Needs pipework, crew and a couple of other details, but the worst of it is done.

Getting the Manning Wardle H out the other day for that picture prompted me to finally get around to doing the transfers. I've been trying to sum up the courage to do this for some time...

Two rival factions meet at Guilford Colliery

The handle on the front being an airlock, if I remember correctly. Not entirely sure why they felt that was necessary!

O-16.5 is probably going to end up being cheaper for me, as I can reuse some of my OO chassis for locos, and use up all my spare OO track! Though of course, in the long run I may end up doing both...

Given all the distractions I currently have, I probably shouldn't be messing with AnyRail any more, but it has just occurred to me that with a Quarry Hunslet and some Peco slate wagons, a OO9 Inglenook could fit in the same space as an A3 piece of paper... No! Must not get sidetracked!

Sounds like a nice idea - just pugs, or other bases as well? E.g. Terriers, R1s, Electrotrens etc. May not be able to participate myself due to far too many ongoing projects... May also be something RMweb is interested in sponsoring/promoting, as per the old cakebox challenges.

I'm told it's being test built at the moment! Andy is a very busy man at the moment so things have slowed down a bit on the kit front, but it shouldn't be too far away now.

I'm not sure I've mentioned this before, but there is another layout in the works, and it reached a milestone over the weekend - the first loco running on it! Minimum space, in O-16.5, and designed to pack down into a pelicase (admittedly quite a large pelicase) as I won't be getting any more living space any time soon. It's still a back burner project as I have more to do on the OO for now, but next steps are to make a control panel and figure out how to inset all the track into concrete... oh, and come up with a name for it!

More Peckett work going on! Two versions to test two different motorisation methods - one with an N20 vertically in the firebox, which leaves lots of space for weight in the boiler and tanks. The other has a 'proper' gearbox with a 5-pole motor, which traditional wisdom says will be smoother. Doubly so if I add a flywheel. Experiments to begin shortly...

SPUDs don't have a great reputation, but I think they can be made to work ok. This one needs running in, which I think will help cure the slight stutter every now and then. I'm pretty happy with it though!

The Q is a bit smaller all round apart from a longer wheelbase, the tank is a bit lower and narrower and I think the boiler/smokebox is smaller too. Though I'm sure Manning Wardle would supply a larger tank if requested... A re-wheeled Terrier chassis might get you close (wheelbase almost spot on, but 3ft 6in wheels instead of the Terrier's 4ft 0in).

Hang on, is that not normal?